


What Come After

by Mangoesaregood8



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: AU, After Life, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Death, Demons, Heaven, Hell, M/M, Second Chances, Sex, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 10:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7044574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangoesaregood8/pseuds/Mangoesaregood8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan wakes up after being killed by Eric to find that he's been reincarnated into an angel.  His pure soul is exactly what the other angels have been looking for.  Eric wakes up to find that he's been reincarnated as a demon.  His sins are so greatly numbered that there was never any chance of redemption.  The two try to adjust to their new lives, while trying to stay true to themselves, and hopefully reunited once more despite their new natures.  Will later be rated M for graphic depictions of violence, torture, and sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Come After

It was dark. That's all that Alan could see. Or couldn't see. He couldn't see his surroundings, and he didn't know where he was. His memory wasn't helping him much either. All he could remember was that he was with Eric, and then there was a blinding pain across his back. Was there anyone else there as well? He vaguely remembered a voice. One that didn't belong to Eric. 

As Alan was thinking, he saw a light appear in front of him. It was very faint and distant, so Alan was struggling to focus on it at first. Considering how dark his surroundings were, Alan didn't mind a little light, so he started walking towards it. 

It took a while before the light seemed to get any closer. After what felt like nearly an hour of walking, the light suddenly became blindingly bright. Alan threw up his hand to try and shield his eyes and staggered backwards. He slowly took a few more steps forward and stumbled as the surface beneath his feet changed from something solid to something soft. He looked down to try and see what he had walked into.   
"Am I walking on a cloud?" Alan asked himself. 

"Yes. You are walking on a cloud," a voice answered. 

Alan gasped and looked up. There was a man standing in front of him, who was at least six feet tall. The man had long, wavy brown hair that was kept back in a ponytail. His hair was so long that he could nearly sit on it. He had medium brown eyes that seemed to glow with their own light. He had olive toned skin, as though he used to live somewhere that got a lot of sun light. He was wearing a long white gown that covered his feet. 

None of these things surprised Alan. Not even the man himself. He was actually glad to see another living being around. He had so many questions that he needed answers to. The thing the surprised Alan were the snow white wings that were growing out of the man's back. 

"W-Where am I?" Alan asked as he took a step away from the man. Even though he was glad to see another person, he was still weary. 

"You're in Heaven," the man replied. He had a slight accent. One that Alan couldn't recognize. 

"Heaven? That's can't be possible. Reapers can't visit Heaven." Alan shook his head, trying to clear it. "I must be dreaming." 

"This is no dream. I promise you that you're in Heaven," the man said. "My name is Heinrich. I am an angel, and I'll be your mentor as you adjust to your new life here." 

"Nice to meet your Heinrich. My name is-" 

"Alan. Yes, I know. I actually know quite a bit about you." 

Despite the numerous amount of questions that Alan wanted to ask, he still wanted to be polite, though this angel had stunned him into silence for a moment. 

Was he really in Heaven? There was an angel standing in front of him, so that was a possibility, but Alan still couldn't shake the feeling that he was dreaming. For him to be in Heaven, he would have had to have died first. And Reapers didn't go to Heaven, dead or alive. Being a Reaper was already supposed to be his second chance at life. He didn't think that he had done anything as a Reaper that made him deserve another chance. Unless Heaven was taking pity on him for his condition... 

"Why am I here?" Alan asked. "What could I have possibly done to deserve Heaven?" 

"You are here, because despite having been a reaper, you still have a pure soul. We have been watching you Alan Humphries. Ever since you were born. You showed promise as an angel from a young age, despite all that you have been through," Heinrich explained. 

A shudder ran down Alan's spine. "I'd rather not think about my childhood, thank you very much," he said flatly. His childhood was something that Alan tried to avoid thinking and talking about at all costs. The memories were far too painful. 

"Not just your childhood, Heinrich said. "Even the time you spent as a Reaper. You worked with compassion and kindness." 

Alan frowned, his gaze to the ground. "Yes, and that's what got me into my predicament in the first place." 

"But look at where you are now. Some of us have to suffer a little bit before we are rewarded, and now you're about to enter the ultimate paradise." 

Alan was silent. He wasn't about to contradict an angel on the subject of Heaven. Thought before he had discovered that he had the Thorns of Death, Alan could have believed that he was already in Heaven. While he didn't like the field work aspect of his job all that much, it was still bearable. And he rather enjoyed the paperwork. There may have been a lot of it, but it was easy enough for Alan to finish it quickly. And then there was his partner, Eric Slingby. When Alan had just graduated from the Academy, Eric had been his assigned mentor. At first, Alan was fairly sure that Eric hated him, but he could never figure out why. Alan had been nothing but polite and courteous, while Eric was cold and unfeeling. Alan had often considered requesting a new mentor, but thought better of it each time. Not only did he not want to subject someone else to Eric's cruel training, but he also didn't want to give Eric any reason to dislike him further. 

All of that changed though when Alan had gotten injured during a training accident. Eric and Alan were practicing their sparring when Eric had gotten a little too carried away. Eric threw a roundhouse kick, but Alan wasn't moving fast enough to dodge it. The force of the impact of Eric's foot to Alan's face knocked Alan to the ground, and his glasses went flying halfway across the room.   
Eric was at Alan's side the moment he hit the ground. 

"Alan?" Eric grabbed Alan by the shoulders and shook him gently. "Alan, are you alright?" 

Alan could feel a strong throb in his left cheek that radiated all around his eye. He felt dizzy and everything around him look blurry. 

"I can't see..." Alan mumbled softly. 

"What? Shite!" Eric started looking around frantically before freezing. "Right..." He got up and picked up Alan's glasses before returning to Alan's side to put them back on the smaller man's face.   
"How's that?" Eric asked, his accent thicker than usual from his worry. 

"Much better. I'm still rather dizzy though. Any my face smarts something awful. You really know how to give a good kick, down you?" Alan tried to ease some of Eric's worry with a joke, even if it wasn't a very good one. 

Eric wrapped an arm around Alan's thin shoulders and slowly helped him into a sitting position. 

"Do you think I would have survived my first encounter with a demon if I couldn't protect myself?" Eric asked with a chuckle. 

Alan froze. Was he hearing things correctly? Was that a laugh? From Eric of all people? So the man did have a sense of humor. The closest thing Alan had heard from Eric that even resembled a laugh were the cold, heartless chuckles he would give whenever he knocked Alan to the ground during their physical training, which used to happen quite often. There wasn't an ounce of warmth or amusement in those.   
"Alan?" Eric felt the other man stiffen up in his arms. "What's wrong?" 

"N-Nothing," Alan said after taking a moment to collect his thoughts. "It's just... that I've never heard you laugh before." 

"Huh." Eric shrugged. "Guess I've just never had much to laugh about here. Enough of that though. Let's get you some ice for your face." 

And just like that, Eric was back to his distant professional self. Though after that incident, Eric didn't seem so cold anymore. he even invited Alan out for tea one day after work. It was then that Eric had revealed why he was so cold to Alan. Eric had feelings for him, which was strictly forbidden between mentors and their trainees. Part of Alan was relieved. A part of him until that moment was afraid that he had done something to offend Eric when they first met. He was glad that that wasn't the case.

I hope you can forgive me for how I've been treating you. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable with my feelings for you. Also, you're the first man I've ever liked, so I'm still trying to come to terms with it myself," Eric explained. 

Alan smiled to himself. He always figured Eric to be more of a ladies' man. Especially with the way the women in General Affairs practically laid themselves at his feet. Alan didn't think that Eric would be his type, but then again, he hardly knew the man. The part he knew was the cold mentor. 

"Well, there's no rules saying that we can't be friends," Alan said. 

"Aye, you're right. There's not," Eric agreed. 

"Then perhaps for now we could be friends?" That would give Alan a better chance to judge Eric's character and see if they would really work out as a couple. It was all new to Alan as well. he was never able to find another man that liked him back when he wa human and he never really fancied women. 

And it turned out that Eric was a wonderful man. They started dating once Alan became a Senior Reaper and had been together ever since. It was the happiest that Alan had ever been in his entire existence.   
"Mr. Humphries?" A voice called. 

"What?" That snapped Alan out of his memory. 

"Have you been listening to a single word I've said?" Heinrich asked. 

"Oh... I'm sorry. I must have spaced out." 

Heinrich muttered something in a foreign tongue, which sounded rough to Alan. He figured it was about as close as one could get to cursing while in Heaven. 

"Well, I was saying that things are going to be much different now that you're an angel. First, you'll find that you won't need to take care of your... bodily needs. You won't need to eat, drink, or sleep, though you'll find that many of us enjoy sleep as a luxury when we aren't busy." 

"That's certainly something I'll need to get used to," Alan said. 

"And you'll also notice that we angels are much stricter about our morals then Reapers, so that's something to keep in mind." 

'Stricter about their morals?' Alan thought to himself. What was that supposed to mean? Was he referring to that time when Grell went rogue and became Jack the Ripper? Or maybe... At that moment, it felt like someone had dropped a dead weight in Alan's stomach. Perhaps Heinrich was referring to Eric. Eric had been collecting souls that weren't on the To Die list in order to save Alan from the Thorns of Death. In the Reaper world, collecting souls that weren't on the To Die list was highly illegal and could be punishable by death. Eric hadn't collected just one soul, but almost one thousand of them. Before Alan had died, he aand Eric had run away from the Dispatch in an attempt to save Eric from his fate. Eric had also promised Alan that he would stop collecting souls. Alan had lost his life in an attempt to keep Eric from breaking that promise. 

"Before I show you where you're going to be staying, I'm going to show you around, so hopefully you won't get too lost," Heinrich said. 

They were now approaching a set of softly glowing gates. 

"I do have one question," Alan said. 

"Yes? What is it?" 

"How would I get back to Earth?" Alan asked. 

Alan could see Heinrich's shoulders stiffen. 

"You have no reason to go back to Earth." 

Alan frowned. "What if I wanted to go back to check on people?" 

Heinrich stopped walking and turned to face Alan. Despite his thin build, his over six feet tall stature was quite intimidating as he loomed over Alan. 

"You are not a guardian angel," Heinrich said. Alan could hear the edge to his voice. "Therefore you have no reason to go back to Earth." 

"Not even if I want to check on someone for my own purposes?" Alan asked.

"No. There's nothing left on Earth for you." 

"What?" 

Heinrich shook his head and started walking towards the gates. "Nothing. I've already said too much." 

"Wait a minute!" Alan wasn't usually one to try and manhandle people, but he needed answers. He grabbed Heinrich by the arm. 

"Do not touch me!" Heinrich ripped his arm away. 

"I'm sorry, but you can't just say something so vague and not expect me to have questions." 

"Alan, I have already said too much," Heinrich said. 

"Heinrich please! Just this once." 

Heinrich sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose over his glasses. "Fine. Just this once. What I meant was that there is no one left on Earth for you to return to." 

Alan felt as though he was about to be sick. "So that means Eric..." 

"Eric is dead," Heinrich said. 

Alan froze. Eric was dead? What in the world had happened to him? 

"Where is he?" Alan asked. "Is he here? Where can I find hi-" 

"Here's not here," Heinrich said. 

"Purgatory then?" Alan asked after a minute. 

"No Alan. Eric is in Hell." 

"Hell?" Alan fell to his knees. His legs would no longer support his weight. "That can't be. He... He... He's not a bad person."The decision has already been made and there is nothing you can do about it," Heinrich said. "Now come along. I need to show you around." 

It took Alan a moment before he was able to rise to his feet. it felt like someone had injected his veins with ice water. Every part of him felt cold. Eric was in Hell? Alan knew that Eric had been collecting souls illegally, but he wasn't killing in cold blood. He was doing it for a greater purpose, even if Alan didn't approve of it. He wasn't a bad person. Eric was one of the kindest and sweetest people that Alan knew. Hell was no place for him. 

"Come along Mr. Humphries," Heinrich said a bit more forcefully. He grabbed Alan by the arm and pulled the smaller man to his feet. "We have things to do and it's not good to keep your superiors waiting. Let's go." He gave a tug to Alan's arm to get him moving. 

Alan trudged slowly behind Heinrich, still trying to process everything that was going on. Eric was in Hell, and there was nothing Alan could do to change that.


End file.
